The Rejected
by Fusion7
Summary: (Set three years after the "Promise of Reunion" ending) When Ib and Garry burned Mary's portrait, they destroyed her father's remaining goodwill towards humanity. Now, he recreates his daughter, and he desires retribution - not just against Ib and Garry, but against their world as a whole.
1. An Artist's Ire

_(I uploaded this story earlier under a slightly different name, but it got screwed up in the process so I took it down. Here it is again.)_

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><p>"No, No! Please stop! Please stop!" Mary cried.<p>

Despite her pleading, the pair of humans paid no heed. With the dispassionate and deliberate nature of a psychopath, Garry flicked on his lighter and set the painting alight.

Mary could only scream as her body erupted in flames. Within seconds, they engulfed her completely. Collapsing onto the ground, she writhed in agony as the fire blackened her clothes and charred her skin. And yet no less unbearable than the searing physical pain was the emotional pain, her feelings of anger and despair. Tears streamed from her eyes only to sizzle and evaporate amidst the heat.

None of this seemed fair to Mary. Is this what she gets for wanting friends? Is this what she deserves for seeking a better life? Struggling to look up, she saw Ib and Garry simply standing there, watching. She could accept Garry's inaction, but Ib's complacency in Mary's imminent demise devastated her in a way not even the flames could. Ib was supposed to be her _friend_! Ib was supposed to be her _sister_! Yet now she abandons her to die? Now she betrays her?

By this point, Mary was literally disintegrating. Burning chunks of her body and clothing were falling away and turning to ash. Oblivion began to beckon. Feeling the life fading from her fabricated heart, she took one last moment to look Ib straight in the eye. Even as the tears and flames blurred her vision, Mary's piercing glare seemed to cut straight to the little girl's soul.

Her last sight was of Ib wincing slightly. And then all was dark.

* * *

><p>"Mary."<p>

"Mary."

She slowly opened her eyes. She was no longer in her room; she wasn't sure where exactly she was, aside from the fact that she was still in the Fabricated World. Yet she sensed someone close to her. Not one of the humans who betrayed her. Someone dear to her, someone she loved even if at times she also feared.

"Father?" she asked. She surveyed her person. No burn marks, no smoldering edges, all was like before the fire. Sitting up, she then looked around. She seemed to be in a small studio of some sort, like the one she was born in, but different and part of the Fabricated World. A floating paintbrush was putting the final touches on a new portrait of her. It was almost like her old picture… except it seemed almost imperceptibly darker. She couldn't put her finger on it, though.

"I have recreated you," Father's disembodied voice stated. "I wanted you to know what they did. I wanted you to reflect on everything that has transpired, on why all of this happened."

Rolling her eyes, Mary muttered under her breath, "All I wanted was to go to the outside world and have friends and not be lonely…"

There was no reply, but she immediately sensed the stern disapproval in the air around her. Father was not amused. "I'm sorry," she whimpered.

"When I first gave you life," Father resumed, "I imparted to you the warmth that still remained in me. You embodied what little goodwill I still held towards humanity and its society."

Mary quietly noted that Ib would not have understood half of what Father was saying and would have been utterly lost.

"Soon after I created you" he continued, "you begged to see the real world. You yearned for the company of human friends. You pleaded again and again for me to give the world a second chance. And I relented. I agreed to give the world a second chance. I agreed to let you reenter their society, to be the embodiment of my reconciliation with them. All I asked for in return from them was for someone to take your place. A token of acknowledgement for their past wrongs. It would only be fair that way. I sent over from the real art gallery two of their most promising individuals, so that they may prove themselves worthy and bring you over to their world; one as your escort, the other as the sacrificial lamb. And what did they do?"

Mary choked. "They… they killed me," she managed to say, trying to fight back tears.

"Yes. After they desecrated my artwork and insulted my name, the escort abandoned you, and the lamb burned you alive." At this point, Mary could no longer hold back. She began to cry.

"Were they ever truly your friends?"

"No," Mary whimpered as tears rolled down her face.

"Correct. They were never your friends." Father's tone suddenly changed. "Neither of them!" he roared at her. "Their world's notion of friendship is utterly meaningless! They rejected you as a monster! They hated you! Even the little girl hated you as soon as she learned you weren't one of their kind!" By this point Mary was sobbing uncontrollably. Had Ib really hated her because she wasn't "real"? Memories of all the time she spent with Ib peeled away to reveal the memories of Ib watching complacently as she burned alive. Whether she was more upset by this betrayal or by a sense of having failed Father, she was not quite sure.

The presence around her abruptly softened again. "There there, Mary," Father said. "I too was rejected by their kind. With hollow praise they fawned over my work as long as it caught their attention, but as soon as another artist arose, they abandoned and forgot me. The only ones who remembered my name were the whores who continued to seek my hand and inheritance through marriage. When I decried these injustices, the world laughed me off as insane. They had rejected me. I understand your pain."

Another pause. Mary sniffled and started to dry her reddened eyes. Father's demeanor usually seemed cold and distant. It was unusual for him to try to comfort or sympathize with her like this.

He resumed. "I should have never let my guard down and let you reach out to that world. It was a mistake for me to believe that its society deserved another look. I hope that you agree now."

Mary could only nod. Perhaps Father had been right all along about the real world. Perhaps seeking friends had been a mistake. Perhaps all of the books she had on how to make friends were built on nothing but a sham.

This made sense for Garry, what about Ib? Even after all that had happened, Mary couldn't get herself to hate Ib. Even now, all Mary could get herself to see was a good-hearted girl raised by a no-good world. She almost wanted to pity Ib, that poor human whose conscience had been smothered and silenced by her society.

But then the image of Ib passively standing by and letting Mary die flashed back. Did it really matter how Ib had been socialized? Had it somehow made the agony of burning alive more bearable? Ib was supposed to be her friend! Not a sham friend like what Father just described, but a _real_ friend! And as far as Mary was concerned, a real friend wouldn't abandon someone to die, no matter what she was taught by society!

Mary's sadness started to give way to a desire for retribution. "Father," she asked as she stood up, lips trembling, "what happened to Ib and Garry? Did they get away with what they did?"

"I am afraid so," he responded. A small canvas materialized, and on it appeared a crude sort of window into the real world. Mary's fabricated heart sank as she saw that her murderers had not only survived, but thrived. She saw them talking, laughing, bonding over how their mutual hatred of the Fabricated World and all who lived in it. At one point, Ib briefly expressed a twinge of guilt about having stood by while Mary burned to death. For a moment, Mary's rising anger softened, but this moment was shattered when Garry replied, "Look, it had to be done." Worst of all, Mary saw Ib silently nodding. Not only was she complicit in the act; she _condoned_ it.

Any remaining warm feelings for the two humans melted away. "But this is wrong!" cried Mary, stamping her foot as the canvas disintegrated. "Can't you do something, Father?! This isn't fair! They shouldn't be able to get away with this!"

Out of the side of her eye, Mary noticed that her new portrait was complete. It was indeed darker than the original picture. The thorns on the roses were more prominent now. Her previously warm smile and gaze were now icy, almost malevolent. She looked almost as if she was being forced to smile out of courtesy but in reality harbored a deep-seated hatred for the viewer.

"Fear not," Father cooed, "for they will not. Just as I have slowly rebuilt you, so too am I creating our means to achieve justice. They and their world shall pay for all their wrongs against us."

At that point, a door on the side of the studio unlocked. Father wanted her to come. Walking through the door, Mary found herself on a balcony overlooking a vast, dimly lit chamber, unlike any other in the Fabricated World. Despite her vantage point, she couldn't discern the far side of the room or even the ceiling. There were no permanent features in the room, but scattered all across the floor were easels, canvases, blocks of clay, and all art supplies imaginable.

And as far as she could see, dozens of paintbrushes, chisels, and other tools were diligently painting and sculpting new brothers and sisters. Many looked somewhat like her older siblings, but there was something darker, scarier about them. Legions of headless statues arose, similar to the ones she was used to, but bulkier and meaner in their appearance. They lacked normal hands; one had been modified into a claw, while the other was replaced with a cannon-like appendage. They were joined by floating white mannequin heads, delicate red tendrils streaming from their necks as they cried tears of acidic blood and emitted noxious red gas. Succubi presumably derived from Big Sister dragged their picture frames across the floor. Even Red Eyes appeared; a gun had been sewn into his back.

Others were nothing like any of the previous dwellers of the Fabricated World. Gargoyles soared overhead like birds of prey. Spider-like figurines skittered along the floor, their hollow bodies full of venom. Armored, three-legged monsters lacking a distinct front or back stomped into view, each of their three sides sporting a sculpted face with a cannon protruding from the mouth. Lumbering in the distance, hulking behemoths at least 50 feet tall took shape.

"Don't worry, my child," Father said he said as the abyssal serpent from an older painting slithered out of the shadows. "Their world shall be brought to justice,"

"Father, are you trying to –"

"If possible, my dear," he replied. "Their whole society is guilty. But I will make no promises. I have seen them when they fight amongst themselves; their weapons are strong. Yet even if we don't make their world ours, our retribution shall be satisfactory so long as we do two things."

"What?"

"We must destroy Garry. And we must kill Ib."

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><p><em>(So that's what I have for my first Ib fanfiction. I chose to give Mary and Guertena a relatively closer relationship than other authors because it simultaneously gave him a personal stake in seeking revenge against Ib and allowed me to flesh out his character in a more satisfying manner. Namely, it let me give him a bit of a persecution complex. I am not sure if I have the skill or talent to continue the story, though. If you liked it, I don't know if I can do justice to this first part, and if you disliked it, then whatever I do next might be even worse. Again, this is based off of the "Promise of Reunion" ending.)<em>


	2. They Come

_(Thank you to everyone who provided the support and encouragement for me to keep going. Hopefully this next chapter will live up to your expectations.)_

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><p><em>I have been turned into a painting, stuck to the wall in a long, dark room. I don't know how this happened or where I am. I try to move or call for help but am unable to do either. I can't even move my face. I am trapped on this canvas, frozen in my current position.<em>

_A young girl steps out of the shadows and walks in my direction. I struggle to discern who she is at first, but she is coming closer, and her form is becoming clearer; her golden blonde hair, her bold green dress… _

_No. Not her. Please let it not be her._

_I can now make out her facial expression. Her bold blue eyes are fixed intently on my picture. Her mouth is curled into a twisted grin. Her overall expression is a combination of spite and dark satisfaction. At this point, I notice that she is clutching a short metallic object in her left hand._

_Oh God. It's her._

_She stops. "You abandoned me," she says chillingly. "Didn't we promise to be friends? Why did you break your promise?" The metallic object turns out not to be her palette knife after all, but rather… a lighter?__…__ Oh no. Please don't!_

_I can't run. I can't plead with her. I can't so much as even show my fear on my face. My calm expression on the canvas remains fixed and frozen, locking in my actual feelings of panic and terror. I hear the flick of the lighter and see the glow of its small orange flame. "You could have said something. You could have stopped him." she hisses as she draws the lighter closer and closer to me. _

_I want to scream. All I want right now is simply the ability to scream._

_The flame touches the bottom of the canvas, igniting it. "But no," she says as I feel the fire begin to devour me. "You let it happen."_

Ib bolted upright from her bed. It was just a nightmare… It was _that_ nightmare.

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><p>Writing a new entry in her diary, Ib sighed as she thought about her dream last night<strong>.<strong> She normally wouldn't record something like this, but it was the fourth night in a row she had this nightmare. By writing out all of her thoughts on the matter, Ib hoped to resolve whatever mental qualm might be triggering the dreams.

It had been just shy of three years since her encounter with the Fabricated World. The anniversary was only a few days away, in fact. As brave and mentally tough as Ib was, the incident left the same mark on her that it would have left on anyone her age. For the most part Ib was still the same quiet but well-adjusted girl she had always been, except now she wanted nothing to do with art. She used to love drawing and working with watercolors, but following the trip to the gallery, those activities came to a sudden end. Her grades in Art class had dipped noticeably. Whenever Ib walked past a portrait, she would subconsciously cling to the other side of the room. Even if her outward demeanor didn't always show it, internally Ib's experiences had taken their toll on her.

Ib's parents noticed the shift in their daughter's behavior and naturally wanted to know what was troubling her. They could tell it had something to do with the gallery. That was when the change abruptly occurred, after all. Following their visit, Ib's mother was among the group of wealthy donors who helped make the originally-temporary Guertena exhibit permanent, yet despite her mom's enthusiasm, Ib refused to ever return to the gallery. Saddened by her daughter's sudden disenchantment with art, Ib's mother ruefully wondered if she was somehow to blame for it all by having taken Ib along to an exhibit that evidently was not suitable for someone her age.

At least initially, Ib's parents also suspected the issue might be connected to Garry – that strange, effeminate, purple-haired man who Ib apparently befriended at the gallery. They were wary enough when he abruptly showed up at their door one day with Ib's handkerchief, but his disturbing familiarity with their daughter and the fact that he had their contact information in the first place was particularly alarming. Despite his seemingly friendly manner and Ib's apparent fondness for him, her mother and father saw every reason for them to be suspicious and subsequently grounded Ib for having given her address to a stranger. Ultimately, though, Garry managed to demonstrate his genuine intentions and gain her parents' trust. This wasn't easy, but thanks to his patient efforts and Ib's persistent lobbying, it eventually happened. It became increasingly clear to Ib's parents that Garry was unlikely the source of their daughter's troubles; if anything, he seemed like he _shared_ whatever traumatic experience Ib had gone through.

Yet whenever her parents tried to ask Ib what was wrong, they couldn't get a straight answer. The most they were able to get out of her was that she accidentally wandered into part of the gallery that probably wasn't supposed to be open to the public and got lost; that it was really scary and hard for her to find her way out; that she met Garry in there and gave him her handkerchief because he had cut himself and was bleeding. It was far from a satisfactory answer, but Ib wouldn't say any more.

After all, she knew better than to try to tell her parents what actually happened. There was no way they would believe her. Nor would her teachers or friends. Ib couldn't talk to anyone about what she experienced, really.

Well, there was one person she could talk to about the Fabricated World. Ib looked up at her calendar. Today she was going to see Garry again. He would be coming by very soon to pick her up, in fact. Despite the rocky start between Garry and Ib's parents, her mom and dad had since come to trust him enough to allow the two to go out on their own together, without a parental chaperon. Ib always looked forward to these days. More than just close friends, they were the only two people who the other could confide in about what really happened that day at the gallery.

Finishing her diary entry, Ib swapped her pencil for a big red marker and drew a bold "G" on the corner of the page. It was how she marked entries related to the incident, so she could easily seek out – or avoid – them later on. Lost in thought, Ib flipped back through her diary to read these past entries. There was one on how part of her almost felt bad for Mary. Another dealt her frustration at being unable to tell her parents what really happened. Yet another one, a relatively recent entry, focused on how she occasionally wondered what was going on back in the Fabricated World.

Finally, there was the large entry on the incident itself. Upon escaping the Fabricated World, Ib initially lost all her memory of what had happened and only regained it thanks to a chance encounter with Garry back in the real art gallery. Afraid that she somehow might forget it all again, Ib wrote a detailed account of everything that happened upon arriving home. Marked especially boldly, it covered how she first found herself in the Fabricated World, the monsters she encountered, how she first met Garry, and how the two of them finally escaped shortly after Mary's death.

The doorbell rang. "Ib!" her mom shouted, "It's Garry!" Snapping back into reality, Ib hurriedly gathered up everything she needed and raced over to the front door. In her rush, she forgot to shut her bedroom door or close her diary. "Bye Mom! Bye Dad!" she called out as she left, adding, "We'll be back before dinner!"

Several minutes after Ib and Garry departed, Ib's mom happened walked by her daughter's bedroom and saw that she had left her reading lamp on. Sighing, she entered the room to turn out the light, making a mental note to admonish Ib when she came back. As she reached for the lamp's switch, her eyes briefly fell upon Ib's still-open diary and the red highlighted entry that it was open to.

Ib's mom froze, her eyes widening.

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><p>"Yeah, I've also been having a lot of unpleasant flashbacks about the gallery recently," Garry said after Ib told him about the nightmares of Mary. The two of them were eating lunch together at a diner in the middle of town. Although they were not the only patrons in the restaurant, they had managed to find a table far enough away from everyone else to be able to talk more freely about their "shared experience" without drawing incredulous stares. A TV was quietly playing an old comedy film, but the two paid little attention to it. "Still," Garry said, "you can't let yourself feel guilty about what happened to Mary. She tried to kill us – twice. We had no other option when we burned the painting. Her death was her fault."<p>

"I know, you're right…" Ib replied half-heartedly. "It's just…" She trailed off. Mary was one area where Ib and Garry had their differences. Ib knew that Garry was right and wanted to agree with him fully, but she just couldn't shake her slight sense of guilt over Mary's death. To be sure, Mary had certainly made bad choices, but she just wanted a normal life. Ib sometimes even wondered whether killing her was the right thing to do, or if there might have been a way that all three of them could have worked out their differences and escaped the gallery together. Garry, on the other hand, was not so inclined to feel sympathetic for Mary. He could see why Ib might take pity on her, but he did not share the feelings. The subject almost made him slightly defensive, in fact.

"But anyway," Garry said, changing the topic, "I guess it makes sense that we're thinking about the Fabricated World so much right now. Can you believe it's already been three years?"

"I can't," Ib replied, shaking her head. Following that, Garry asked Ib about school, and she in turn asked him about his work and graduate studies, but by and large the Fabricated World continued to dominate their conversation. "So, I'm not sure if you've heard already," Garry said at one point, "but it's official now: Our favorite art gallery has been formally renamed the Guertena Art Museum."

"I guess it has been in the making for some time now. My mom would be really excited to hear this," Ib responded, adding "although she probably already knows."

"Yeah, you mentioned that your mom is a big Guertena fan and was one of the donors behind the shift in the first place," said Garry. Ib nodded somewhat embarrassedly and then tried to focus on the food before her, falling silent for a short amount of time. After two minutes of quiet, though, she looked back up and asked Garry, "Why do you think Guertena created the Fabricated World and made it the way he did?"

"I was actually wondering the same thing and read up on him at the library," Garry responded. "Although he was very well-off financially, he became extremely bitter and cynical towards the end of his life. He felt that the world had abandoned him for other artists and that his work was underappreciated. Guertena also apparently had a life-long interest in the occult. Regardless, shortly after painting 'Mary,' he committed suicide… I guess all of this might explain why the Fabricated World is so twisted."

"That would make sense," Ib replied thoughtfully. After a short pause, she asked another question. "Do you ever wonder about what is going on back in the Fabricated World? Do you think that the gallery or anyone in it remembers us?"

"I hope not. That whole place felt like it was out to kill us, and if it or its inhabitants remember us, I doubt they have any good intentions," Garry replied. "Come to think of it, I –"

The programming on the restaurant's television abruptly stopped, replaced with an emergency broadcast display. "We interrupt this program to bring you breaking news," an announcer said. Everyone in the restaurant fell silent, including Ib and Garry. An employee turned up the volume.

"Heavily armed attackers have begun pouring out of the Guertena Art Museum and are overwhelming the security and local police forces. Their nature is not known at the moment, but witnesses described them as 'surreal,' 'alien,' and 'inhuman.' Law enforcement officers have closed off the area around the gallery and will try to contain the attackers until heavier reinforcements arrive. It is unknown if they are connected to the museum or to Weiss Guertena, the artist to whom it is dedicated."

Ib and Garry turned pale as they stared at each other in horror. They instantly knew what was happening, and they knew exactly whose heads the "attackers" were after.

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><p><em>(Now the real fun - along with the the real challenge - begins. Anyway, Looking at how Ib &amp; Garry were actually faring, it appears that Guertena likely "cherry-picked" the scenes he showed Mary in the previous chapter of them in the real world in order to instill as much anger as possible. Special credit goes to Musapan, whose great Ib fanfic "Purple" provided much of the inspiration behind the initial setup involving Ib &amp; Garry.)<em>


	3. Flee, Hide, Survive Part 1

Watching from the now ruined museum, Mary observed the fighting as it spread across the city. "So this is the real world," she thought to herself, smirking. She found it hard to believe that only three years earlier, she saw this world as some sort of promised land and would have done almost anything to come to it. Now, she saw the real world as it truly was, and today she entered it not as an immigrant, but as a conqueror.

The playful gleam that once inhabited Mary's eyes had since disappeared. It died the same day the old Mary – the Mary who idolized and aspired to join the human world – died. It died when Ib and Garry killed the old Mary for having had such aspirations. It died when they showed her the truth about human nature and "friends." Now, Mary's eyes instead burned with a desire for vengeance. Like her father, she saw humanity for what it really was and scorned it as such. However, much more so than Father, her anger was directed at a very specific portion of humanity. For Mary, "humanity," referred first and foremost to the two humans who betrayed and murdered her.

Besides her stood a small pedestal, reaching no higher than her shoulder. An iridescent glass orb floated above it. It was Father, or rather how Father established his presence in the real world. Lacking a physical body, he could not directly travel through the portal per se, so instead he used this artifact as a way to project his will into the real world. Through this simple setup, Father maintained his entire command and control system.

The invasion was off to an excellent start. Father's forces had secured the area around the gallery and were rapidly fanning out through the city. Resistance so far consisted of lightly armed police officers, and their small arms fire was no match for the monsters. Sooner or later the human military would arrive and slow the advance down considerably, but by then Father's foothold would be firmly established. There was only one thing that had not gone as they would have liked: opening up the portal to the real world had somehow disrupted Father's ability to track Ib and Garry. He would have to hunt them down the old fashioned way.

A headless statue approached Mary and the altar. Ib's and Garry's location had been reconfirmed. The two of them were still in the city but appeared to be trying to flee. "Very well then," responded Father. "Ensure that they do not escape."

Mary listened to the brief exchange intently. She clutched a crinkled piece of paper in her hand with several crayon drawings on it. Making heavy use of the color red, the drawings detailed everything Mary would do to Ib and Garry once Father had his hands on them.

* * *

><p>"We need to get out of here!"<p>

Hastily slamming down the rough approximation of the restaurant bill on the table, Ib & Garry bolted out of the diner and ran to Garry's car. The art museum was only a mile or so from their current location. They could see several plumes of smoke starting to form and heard gunfire coming from the gallery's direction. "Of course, they only put out a bulletin after the situation is out of control," Garry muttered as he and Ib dove into the vehicle.

"There's that army base an hour's drive from here. We should be safe there!" Garry said in an urgent tone as he started up the car. The sounds of battle seemed to be coming closer. "Do you know how we'd get there, by any chance?"

"Wait!" Ib cried in alarm. "What about my parents?!"

"The route would be too risky! Guertena's monsters could cut us off and we'd be sitting ducks!"

"But, but...!" she started to reply. In a sickening moment of realization, Ib recognized that Garry was correct, and she gave in.

"Okay, I think I remember the base's rough location! We're out of here!" Garry said as they sped off. To his frustration, he found that other drivers were still following basic traffic norms despite the emerging crisis, impeding their getaway. "Come on, go! Turn already," Ib heard him growl to himself at a stoplight. The sounds of gunfire were starting to come too close for comfort. Garry was not normally one to get impatient in traffic or experience road rage, but his sense of urgency felt more than justified given the situation. The moment the light turned green, he floored the accelerator and shot through the intersection significantly above the speed limit.

Garry turned on the car radio and set it to the local news channel. Updates on the situation flowed in, however inane or regurgitated they might have been at times:

"… The attackers, who witnesses have described as alien and surreal, are continuing to push throughout the city in what appears to be an effort to take and hold territory. Law enforcement officers have so far been unable to contain them..."

"… There is no word yet on the status of the visitors and staff of the Guertena Art Museum, but according to Police Chief Daniel Nash, this is anything but a normal hostage situation, and he has every reason to fear the worst…"

"… The mayor has called for the city's evacuation and asked for any and all assistance from neighboring towns' police forces as well as from the military. 'This is no mere shooting rampage or terrorist attack. This is an invasion of some sort,' he told reporters at hastily organized press conference…"

"… This just in, the governor has declared martial law in the area affected by the attack, while an army spokesman said that the military is mobilizing as fast as it can and will send in soldiers as soon as they are ready…"

As they approached the end of the downtown area, traffic rapidly began to build up. Other people were attempting to flee as well, and together they were clogging all the roadways out. Before long, the flow of traffic had ground to a halt. "Crap!" Garry exclaimed. The sounds of battle continued to come closer. Ib turned around and looked out the rear window. In the distance she saw inhuman figures coming towards them. In particular, a stout, three-legged monster the size of a tank was approaching. It was almost crab-like in appearance, and Ib could make out what looked like a trio of gun barrels sticking out of the monster.

Seeing that they were going nowhere, Garry stopped the car completely and closed his eyes. "Okay, don't panic, Garry. Don't panic," he said under his breath as he gathered his courage. After a moment of silence, he turned to Ib and said, "Okay, if we want to live we're going to need to go on foot! Let's go!" The two of them abandoned the car and began running.

Before they could get too far, the tripod-like monster shot what could only be described as an artillery shell of some sort at them. It landed in the middle of the traffic jam and exploded, flinging Ib and Garry onto the ground. Ears ringing from the blast, Ib slowly picked herself up off the shattered pavement and looked around. Chunks of asphalt and burnt-out cars littered the roadway. She briefly panicked when she couldn't find her rose but then remembered that she was still in the real world. Seeing that she had escaped the blast with only minor scrapes and bruises, Ib ran over to make sure Garry was okay. He had thankfully also avoided any major injuries and was getting back up onto his feet as well.

At that moment, an immense, eight-foot gargoyle landed in front of them, sending up a cloud of dust and crushed asphalt. It began to approach the pair menacingly. Terrified, Ib and Garry tried to backpedal but found themselves cornered amid the wreckage of destroyed cars. There was nowhere to run, and before long the monster was within striking distance. Releasing a fearsome roar, the gargoyle raised its claws up to smash Ib and Garry like a pair of bugs. A crude picture of two corpses appeared on the ground – one male, one female.

Suddenly, before the gargoyle could strike, a hail of heavy machine gun fire tore into the monster's stone body, cracking it to pieces. Amazed, Ib and Garry looked up and saw an attack helicopter flying in their direction. In their panicked state, they had somehow not noticed it approaching earlier. "The base's garrison!" Garry exclaimed with joy. "They're here!" A pair of fighter jets swooped down and performed a strafing run against Guertena's vanguard. In the distance Ib could see soldiers – human soldiers – approaching. The tripod monster turned to face one of its cannons at the attack helicopter, but before it could fire, the gunship shot one of its rockets at it, striking it in the leg and enveloping the tripod monster in a large explosion.

Waving their arms, Ib and Garry ran over to the attack helicopter, shouting "Over here!" at the top of their lungs. The gunship appeared to notice and started to turn, but before anything else could happen, a shell shot out from the cloud of smoke where the rocket had exploded and struck the helicopter, utterly destroying it in a ball of fire. Burning wreckage rained down onto the ground. Although badly damaged, the tripod monster had survived the gunship's rocket and had managed to line itself up for a new shot. More gargoyles landed in front of Ib and Garry, and behind them rows of headless statues advanced, bulkier than the ones from their first encounter with the Fabricated World and equipped with claws and what looked like arm-cannons.

For a moment, Ib and Garry thought they were doomed, but they then realized that the monsters were more focused on the arriving military than on them. Seizing the opportunity, the pair bolted away towards a nearby building. Several of the statues broke off and gave chase, firing their arm cannons at them. Otherworldly bullets whizzed over Ib's and Garry's heads. Right as the two of them reached the entrance, a shot grazed Garry's left arm, causing him to wince in as he ducked into the doorway. Thankfully, it was unlocked. Inside, the building seemed deserted. Spying several tables and chairs, Garry immediately pushed them in front of the door to form a makeshift barricade, buying precious time.

"Ib, do you recall any monsters like this with guns from the Fabricated World?!" Garry panted as he pushed one final chair into place. Ib shook her head. "Neither do I," he stated, "and that only freaks me out even more for some reason." He was about to say something else when the statues began pounding on the door, trying to break through the barricade. It would only be a matter of time before they succeeded. Looking around the room, Ib spotted an emergency exit in the back of the building, tucked away in a small hallway marked for restrooms. She signaled her discovery to Garry, and the two of them made their way out of the exit.

Several seconds later, the statues burst through the barricade, saw the exit their targets had escaped through, and resumed the chase. By this point, though, Ib and Garry had already turned a corner, doing whatever they could to avoid being in the statues' line of fire. For a period of time it seemed like they were beginning to lose their pursuers, but just when it looked like they had gotten away, Ib and Garry ran straight into another group of headless statues, which promptly began firing at them. Panicking, Ib and Garry ducked into an alleyway, and the pursuit began anew.

The chase continued for several, painfully long minutes. Ib and Garry found themselves increasingly out of breath. They couldn't keep going much longer and had to find a way to lose the statues. Rounding another corner, they came across a row of dumpsters and immediately knew what they had to do. Praying for there not to be anything sharp at the bottom, Garry lifted Ib into the one of the dumpsters and then clambered into it himself, shutting the lid as he did.

For a brief second, a sense of relief washed over Ib and Garry, but it quickly came to an end when they heard the sound of unnaturally heavy footsteps coming in their direction. It was the statues. Falling completely silent, Ib and Garry held their breath and listened with dread as the footsteps came closer and stopped in front of the dumpsters. There was a pause. They heard the statues open one of the nearby dumpsters, and then another. Ib and Garry dared not even breath. The pair was sure that this time it really was the end. Another moment of silence ensued.

The footsteps resumed, becoming quieter and quieter as the statues walked away. They were apparently convinced that their prey had continued running and had lost them. When she could no longer hear the statues, Ib released an immense sigh of relief, gasping for air and panting from exhaustion at the same time. Out of shape and completely out of breath, she simply wanted to curl up and pass out, but she knew that she couldn't let that happen – not again. Garry, who wasn't in a much better state, slowly opened the dumpster's lid and checked the surrounding area for monsters. The coast was clear.

Ib and Garry nonetheless remained in the dumpster for the time being, letting themselves recover. Although far from comfortable, the pair was at least out of sight from any new threats. To ensure they didn't suffocate and to let in a little light, they propped the dumpster's lid open slightly with a piece of trash.

Finally, after an hour or two of waiting and hiding, they felt ready to get out. Checking again for any danger, Garry hoisted himself out of the dumpster and then helped his companion get out as well. They looked around in shock as they took in their surroundings, realizing the full scale of the situation. The place looked like a warzone; it _was_ a warzone. The buildings bore various scars of battle, with several being damaged quite significantly. Not a living soul was in sight; they were all either dead or had to be hiding. Given the level of destruction, it was evident that Guertena's monsters had not bothered to differentiate between the military and police who actively opposed them, and the civilian population. Ib and Garry could hear the sounds of intense fighting in the distance. Judging from how far away it sounded, they could tell that the monsters had pushed the army back from where the pair initially saw them.

To get a sense of how far the monsters had pushed, Ib and Garry entered an abandoned multistory building and made their way to the top level, keeping an eye out for danger the whole way. The building had access to the roof, offering a relatively unobstructed view of the surrounding area, at least compared to what they could see from the ground. Ib and Garry saw that Guertena's forces had already seized the entire city and surrounding region. The small base at which they had hoped to seek refuge had fallen. So too had Ib's neighborhood. She could only hope that her parents had managed to evacuate in time. The flashes of explosions and the sound of artillery fire marked the current line of battle and as such the de facto border of the territory under the monsters' control.

Suddenly, an immense, transparent purple barrier of some sort appeared in the sky above them. It appeared to be emanating from a building not too far from the Guertena Art Museum. "What… What is that?" Ib asked, somewhat alarmed.

"I don't know," Garry could only reply. A few seconds later, their answer came when a fighter plane attempted to perform an airstrike on the gallery. The plane launched a missile at the museum, but the missile slammed into the purple field and exploded harmlessly. The barrier was clearly protecting Guertena's monsters from aerial attacks or bombing runs – a prudent move no doubt.

Shortly afterwards, Ib and Garry began to descend from the top of the building. As they did, they had a sickening realization: With Guertena's front lines standing between them and the safety within the military's lines, the two of them were essentially trapped in the area under the monsters' control.

* * *

><p><em>(So there we go. Part of me worries that I might have given Garry too much dominance in his relationship with Ib, but I'm not sure. If so, I'm going to make up for it later in the story, I promise. Regardless, I don't imagine either of them having any combat experience, so there is going to be a lot more "flight" than "fight." If you are looking to see Ib and Garry suddenly turn into action heroes who take down dozens of mooks every minute, this might not be the story for you. Finally, this is my first time in many years trying to write an action scene, so any feedback on what worked or didn't work would be greatly appreciated.)<em>


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